As Nokia's phone business is eaten by Microsoft, here we revisit a few models that shifted the gadget-time continuum.

And we also revisit a few models that really didn't. Because Nokia was out on its own, beholden to no-one, its moments of brilliant boundary-pushing were matched by moments of the purest wrong-headedness the tech world has ever seen. Some of its more experimental designs were utter howlers, both aesthetically and ergonomically.

Their like will never be seen again, and in a curious way, we regret their passing almost as much as we do those of such design greats as the 3210 and Lumia 800. Tech just got a little bit more predictable - so join us in celebrating a time when it didn't seem the height of daftness to organise your alphanumeric keyboard like a clock.

Advertisement

Nokia Cityman (1987)

Nokia Cityman (1987)

Available in “450” and “900” editions (named for the frequencies in MHz they used on the Nordic Mobile Telephony system), the Cityman was Nokia’s first mobile phone and regarded as a sleek, high-end and highly desirable product. How times change. The brick-like handset established the Finnish company as a major telephony player by 1988, helped Nokia secure almost 15 percent of the global mobile phone market.